Petrosani & Yes, those are eggs on a coffee maker

This weekend I met other volunteers in Petrosani, which is a mining town and in the center of the mountains. Small town of about 40,000 people but it was nice and quaint (about 5 hrs to get to by train and you go through 29 tunnels through the mountains). Travelling back by train I had a family in my train wagon and they literally store at me for some time, while I was reading my book I can feel the hard stares until the mom says, 'Chineza?'. So I have my usual explanation in Romanian and after that proceeded to talk to them for the next two hours. The two sons spoke a little English, the kids wanted to discuss cowboys and indians and try to talk in English, the father wanted to talk about Al Capone, the grandma wanted to know why I wasn't married and how I need to find a Romanian woman soon. The mom just kept correcting the children keeping them very well behaved. They explained, at least from their point of view (with a sad look) that most of Europe and the rest of the world looks down on Romania, took me a little by surprise. I explained that was not true at least from the U.S. perspective (great, that's all we need, Steve talking about the perspective of the U.S., the view of who looks down on who will switch quick if I keep representing) and tried to explain that all countries have their growing pains and issues but so far Romania is some of the most beautiful country I have seen. Hopefully that worked.

Creative Cooking
So we were making eggs and potatoes for breakfast when the gas ran out (some towns like mine and Petrosani do not hav central gas so we have to use tanks). The potatoes just barely cooked but we still had the eggs. Kirstin, using Peace Corps ingenuity, starts using the coffee maker to cook the eggs since we did not want to waste them. I must tip my hat to that, altough took a little bit, she was able to make fluffy eggs off of a coffee maker (golf clap).

4th of July
Thank you to Justin and Heather for making burgers and hot dogs! No fireworks though, I wanted to create some (involved rabid dogs, gun powder, gasoline, and a wick - jk) but after dinner everyone was just too tired to do anything.